BUDAPEST, August 16 – Novosti. The filling of gas storage facilities in Hungary is ahead of schedule, 141% of winter gas consumption has already been accumulated, while in some other European countries there are problems with this, said Balazs Orban, adviser to the Hungarian prime minister on political issues.
” Hungary ‘s gas storage capacity is one of the highest in the European Union. In addition, according to a study by the research institute Klímapolitikai Intézet, our country is also in the forefront in terms of occupancy… Our country’s gas supply is secured: the volume of gas in storage facilities is 34% of total annual consumption, 141% of winter consumption and 82% of annual domestic consumption,” Orban wrote on social media.
According to him, many EU countries depend on their neighbors for natural gas supplies, because they either do not have gas storage facilities, such as Estonia and Lithuania , or they do not have enough of their own production, such as Ireland , Luxembourg and Slovenia . ” Germany is in the most difficult situation , where the amount of stored natural gas covers only 19% of annual consumption, and if the storage facilities were completely filled, they would not even reach 26%,” Orban said.
The politician emphasized that by August 1, 920 million cubic meters more gas had been supplied to Hungary than the EU gas storage regulation prescribes. “Therefore, by November 1, Hungary must necessarily reach 35 percent of its average 5-year consumption – 3.65 billion cubic meters. Compared to this, we have already accumulated 3.25 billion cubic meters of gas by August 1, which is 31.13 percent of the average consumption over the past 5 years,” Orban added.
Szijjarto visited Moscow a week after the introduction of the state of emergency , where he held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, at which the issue of supplying additional volumes of Russian gas to the Hungarian market was discussed. According to Lavrov’s results, Hungary’s request will be immediately considered. On August 13 , the Hungarian Foreign Ministry reported that Gazprom began additional gas supplies to Hungary in excess of the established contracts via the Turkish Stream , the daily additional volume until the end of August is 2.6 million cubic meters, and plans for September are also being discussed.
Earlier in July, the Hungarian government declared a state of emergency in the energy sector, which includes a package of seven measures: an increase in gas production in the country from 1.5 to 2 billion cubic meters, a search for an additional 700 cubic meters of gas to fill storage facilities, a ban on the export of energy and firewood, an increase coal production, speeding up the restart of the Matra coal-fired power plant units as soon as possible, extending the life of the Paks nuclear power plant and cutting the preferential program of utility bills.
